I Am the People, the Mob

The poem’s unique speaker is one of the most notable things about Carl Sandburg’s “I Am the People, the Mob.” Unlike most conventional western poetry, in which the poet’s speaker can often be understood as a stand-in for the poet themself or a single, affected persona, the speaker in “I Am the People” is a large, unified collective dubbed “the people—the mob—the crowd—the mass” (Line 1). Though it is easy to assume, from the declaration of identity that open the poem, that the speaker gives voice to all people—or all Americans—the speaker only gives voice to the particular group of working-class Americans. Likewise, there are suggestions of distinctive and important variations even within this particular group of people and the ways by which they operate.

Sandburg carefully employs specific diction choices like “people” and “mob” to describe certain functions and perceptions of the speaker collective. For instance, Line 7 refers to the group exclusively as “People,” while Line 8 only mentions “[t]he mob—the crowd—the mass,” thereby creating a distinction between these groups and the earlier “people.” It is clear from the poem’s first line that “the people—the mob—the crowd—the mass” are to be understood as the “I” of the poem, so this distinction at the end of the poem most likely refers to a distinction in function rather than in form. In other words, the same individuals make up both the “people” and the “mob,” but their role in society changes as their title changes. This analysis makes the same distinction between the “people” and the “mob” to clarify some of the poem’s more obscure concepts.

Though the “people” and the “mob” are comprised of the same individuals that speak with one voice, it would be a misunderstanding of Sandburg’s poem to think they are simply the same. The speaker goes to lengths to describe that the people it embodies are “the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world’s food and clothes” (Line 3), and the “audience that witnesses history” (Line 4). These two facts together, combined with the earlier statement that the people are responsible for “all the great work of the world” (Line 2), suggest that the “people” of the poem refer to a laboring class that work blue-collar jobs. This grouping is perhaps most obvious when one considers the lack of white-collar, intellectual workers in Line 3’s list. The people of Sandburg’s poem also “witness” history rather than engage in it, suggesting that they are often underrepresented in historical discourse. Even the “Napoleons” and “Lincolns” (Line 4)—two leaders who are notable in history despite their working-class backgrounds—transcend their position and “come from” (Line 4) the people rather than stay a part of it.

The term “the people” has long been used as a derogatory phrase for large masses of lower-class workers; this usage is what the speaker references when they mention the “speaker” who would “say the name: ‘The People,’ with […] a sneer in his voice or any far off smile of derision” (Line 7). Sandburg flips this derogatory term on its head. Instead of starting from the aristocratic, upper-class position and using “the people” as an umbrella term, Sandburg’s speaker embodies “the people” and makes the upper classes the out group. By focusing on the “great work of the world” (Line 2) that the people have accomplished and the “Napoleons” and “Lincolns” (Line 4) it has produced, the speaker collective places the people in a position of power over the unmentioned upper classes. The speaker’s itemizing of all the essential roles the working class play in Line 3, and the further emphasis they place on their connection to agriculture in Line 5, leaves very little room for the societal roles of the upper class. At the same time, this emphasis also expands the working class by individuating their varied positions in society, thereby making their presence known.

The speaker’s emphasis on the working classes, however, is not at the complete exclusion of the upper classes. By dint of their exclusion from the collective people, the upper classes can be assumed to be Line 7’s previously mentioned “speaker,” as well as the individual(s) “who robbed me last year, who played me for a fool” (Line 7). They should also be considered part of the “Everything but Death” that “comes to [the worker] and makes [them] work and give up what [they] have” (Line 5). These sentiments suggest a type of class struggle between the rich and poor populations in which the upper classes deceive and force the lower classes to work. This kind of class struggle is a central idea in many socialist political treatises and is believed—particularly in Marxist theory—to be exploitable by the lower classes as a practical means of radical social and economic reform.

There are many ways that the working class could exploit the class struggle in order to enact political reform. An important aspect of the class struggle is that the working classes always outnumber the elite. The speaker’s aforementioned expansion of the working classes and reduction of the upper classes, too, gives a sense of how outnumbered the upper classes are. This population disparity is where the “mob” becomes relevant. The last two lines of Sandburg’s poem shift from the present to the future tense, and suggest a time when the working classes “learn to remember” (Line 7) the injustices they have been done and the “derision” (Line 7) they have been dealt. The “People” of Line 7 are wholly absent from “The mob—the crowd—the mass” (Line 1) that “will arrive” (Line 8) once these injustices are recognized. Instead of functioning as part of the hierarchy that has disenfranchised them, the “people” turn into the “mob”—a signal of collective upheaval and discontent. The arrival of the “mob,” then, means revolution—a revolution, like those led by Lincoln and Napoleon, with the aim of establishing a more equitable relationship between the lowest and highest classes.